Georgios Papandreou

Georgios Papandreou                                    ΓΕΩΡΓΙΟΣ ΠΑΠΑΝΔΡΕΟΥ

Born 13 February 1888, Achaia                 Died 1 November 1968, Athens

Plaza, Number 83B 

Georgios Papandreou studied law in Athens and then political science in Germany where he espoused the ideals of Social Democracy as an acceptable path between right wing conservatism and Marxist communism. (1)  He served in a dizzying array of governments before striking out on his own. Given his famous integrity, charisma, and what he did achieve, one wonders what he could have accomplished had his long career unfolded in less turbulent times.

He would found two political parties during his lifetime, was prime minister three times, and remained a force to be reckoned with until his death in 1968. Perhaps unwittingly, he founded a political dynasty. Both his son and grandson would become Prime Ministers of Greece.

 

His Complicated Political Life

 

From 1912-1933

In 1912, at age 24, Papandreou was appointed governor of Chios by Prime Minister  Eleftherios Venizelos. He supported Venizelos during the national schism of 1916 and went into exile with him when the King was restored to the throne in 1920. After the Asia Minor debacle in 1922 and the subsequent coup against the king led by Nikolaos Plastiras and Stylianos Gonatas, Papandreou became their political advisor and subsequently served as Gonatas’ interior minister. From December 1923, as a member of Venizelos’ Liberal Party he served as finance minister (1925), education minister (1930–1932) and transport minister (1933). 

 

1935-1943

In 1935, he founded the Democratic Socialist Party of Greece (Δημοκρατικό Σοσιαλιστικό). During this period, Papandreou was a fierce anti communist but he could not stomach the aims of dictator Ioannis Metaxas either. When Metaxas was declared  Prime Minister in 1936, Papandreou went into exile for the second time. 

 Following the German invasion of Greece in 1941, Papandreou joined the predominantly Venizelist government in exile in Egypt. King George, at the urging of the British, appointed him Prime Minister of the government in exile.  As Prime Minister he presided over the Lebanon Conference of 1944 and the Caserta Agreement in September of the same year. (2) 

Papandreou in the 1940s

In 1944, he entered a liberated Athens as Greece’s interim Prime Minister. He would resign twice after the bloody events surrounding the Dekemvriana.(3)   He was 56 at the time and even after his resignation he continued to hold high government posts (labor minister, supplies minister, education minister, finance minister, public order minister, and as deputy prime minister from 1950-52).

 The years between 1952 and 1961 were difficult years for him and very good years for his conservative political rival, Constantinos Karamanlis whose star was in the ascendant during that period. 

 In 1961, Papandreou attempted to revitalize Greek liberalism and fight Karamanlis’ National Radical Union (ERE) Party by founding the Center Union Party. He was 73. 

 He won the elections of 1963 and 1964, the latter by a landslide.  Always wary of palace interference, he tried to placate the king by appointing a conservative Minister of Defense.(4) This effort unraveled in 1964 when King Paul died and his young son Constantine became King. By 1965 they were not even on speaking terms. This would have been bad enough, but Papandreou was also having difficulties keeping his own party in line. It was an alliance of various factions covering the political spectrum from leftist Elias Tsirimokos, formerly of  EAM,  to conservative Constantinos Stephanopoulos, formerly high up in Karamanlis’ party. All were against Karamanlis’ ERE, but not necessarily for each other.

The End Game 

By 1964, Papandreou, although popular with the people – especially the young - was in danger. The king wanted to approve his key cabinet choices, a younger Constantinos Mitsotakis wanted to take over his party, his more radical son, Andreas, had moved further left than his father, and a group of army colonels believed that politicians had made a poor job of it and it was time for the army (yet again) to take Greece in hand.

They did on April 21, 1967.

Papandreou remained under house arrest until his death at the age of 80 in 1968. As his funeral procession made its way through downtown Athens, Greeks lined the streets in their thousands to bid him farewell in a pointed protest against the military dictatorship.

Family Life

His private life reveals a passionate man who wooed the women he loved with poetry (5). He had several loves starting with his first wife Sophia Mineyko whom he married in 1913. She was of Polish-Greek descent and mother of Andreas, a future prime minister.

His next great love and second wife was CybeleAdrianou, one of Greece’s greatest theatrical luminaries.  

She gave up her career to share her life with him until he apparently sent her a telegram (!) announcing a new relationship with a Chilean nightclub singer named Rosita Serano. (6)

Whatever Cybele’s thoughts were about his interlude with Serano, they nonetheless remained married although they lived apart.

His is not a family grave. It seems somehow telling that neither his wife nor his son chose to be buried alongside him. Andreas lies in a far grander grave in the Plaza, and Cybele chose to be buried with fellow actors and singers in Section 14.

As for Rosita, she returned to Chile but her memory in Greece is a sweet one. Athens had been more agog than shocked or disapproving at Papandreou’s affair and a cake was created by Athenian confectioners in her honour. 

Few people biting into a delicious ‘Serano’ today remember the story behind its name.

The Map

 

 Footnotes

 

(1) Social democrats believed that the state must provide security and equality and should re-order society to achieve these goals. Government intervention in case of capitalistic excesses was a force for good because it would benefit all.

(2) Both of these conferences were attended by the Greek government in exile and the EAM leadership and were an attempt to reach agreement (which they did) on recognizing the Greek government in exile as the only legitimate government and the one to preside over the transition to peace time.

(3) The Dekemvriana was a series of events triggered by the killing of EAM demonstrators in Syntagma Square by government police. It marked the beginning of total mistrust between the right and left – a mistrust that led to the civil war.

(4)  Ioannis Gennimatas and Petros Garoufalis

(5) A site with his poems to Sophia: http://www.mixanitouxronou.gr/afise-ta-cheria-mou-epano-sta-stithi-sou-na-to-vronta-i-kardia-sou-ta-erotika-grammata-tou-georgiou-papandreou-sti-sofia-mineiko/

(6) Rosita had a beautiful voice to go with her looks (Have a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q01to-5p9w ) She was in Germany during the war to record for the Telefunken label and became quite a Nazi favorite.

She fell out of favour with the Gestapo after appearing in a benefit for Jewish refugees in Sweden and somehow ended up a star in the Greek cabaret scene in the early 1950s.